Ever since some critter crawled from the sea, shook off the salt water and looked around, planet earth has seen more and MORE of everything.

The very essence of progress as seen under those conditions was simply MORE. More critters gathered together and Adam and Eve did their thing and soon there were still more.

As time passed there were more huts and then more villages. There were more grunts that morphed into the beginnings of language.

Then there were stone tools—and ever greater variety of tools.

Perhaps you have already picked up my theme and I do not need to spell out all the MORE that has been going on for the last several hundred thousands of years of the history of humanity.

Today we have spread more than 7 billion bodies across the globe and our population is growing more and MORE every year. Virtually every scientist alive has made clear that we are rapidly approaching the point of no return in how many people our planet can accommodate.

Is it more in and of itself that is now threatening our survival?

There are many people who think that basic human goals are much more complicated. They say humans want things to/be easy, simple, and fun. But, if they drill a bit deeper, they inevitably are likely to see that it is more easy, more simple, and more fun.

Why therefore is more the irreducible goal of progress?

Perhaps more is at the root of our universe? Since the Big Bang the Universe has been endlessly expanding into more space, more galaxies, more stars, more planets.

So we on earth have become caught up in more of everything. More people, more money, more fun, more booze, more cars.

It begins to look like may have to reexamine our cherished goal of more if we are going to survive much longer.

Assuming that we conclude that we should change our orientation from more to something else, how could we go about it without completely upsetting our apple cart.

We do not have to switch completely to a less orientation, although it might be useful to start with holding back here and there.

Our long term goals can be switched to BETTER. Better everything—better, more useful money; better, longer lives; better friends; better education etc.

Unfortunately, our desire for more seems to be as immutable as the law of gravity. And the laws of economics seem equally to be stacked against us.

That said better has a powerful appeal that just might be sufficient to animate enough humans to shift our orientation enough to slow down our apparent race to the end of life.